KDE 3.0 Beta2 was announced today after a delay due to a variety of problems. This new release should provide a great opportunity for those interested in helping hunt down bugs or simply seeing where the future of KDE is headed. Read the full announcement for details. "One of the major improvements brought by KDE 3.0 over KDE 2.2 is the Javascript/DHTML support in Konqueror. The DOM 2 model, used to render an HTML page, is now mostly implemented, and changes to the DOM tree are handled much better. The Javascript bindings and support is almost complete, faster and more stable than in KDE 2. These changes result in a much-improved rendering of dynamic websites and is something users will immediately appreciate."

Comments

Jesus man, don't take me so literally =P I'm happy to wait, and as for returning the favour... well, I was planning to do so to the KDE team cause Konq 2.2.1 messes up the rendering of many pages, perhaps if these problems are still there I could file bug reports, isolating the HTML code responsible and everything (I unfortunately, have too much free time but I'm not the best of coders... how hard is it to package the KDE distribution?)

Or why don't you bite the bullet and take a few days to actually download it. I remember when I was on a 33.6 modem and I downloded linux ISOs. Everyone who has a 33.6 modem now would *never* think of doing that, why not? As long as your ISP gives you unlimited time, it's all good :)

And the point of your post is? Why not let KDE-users use their desktop. If Gnome is so good, why don't you just pity us because we use "inferior" desktop, while your Gnome-desktop is "better". If Gnome is so good, it should be able to stand on it's own. It doesn't need people like you, and it doesn't need posts such as yours.

Hmm.. Gnome IS ABLE to stand on its own. It is the default desktop environment
for RedHat, as well as Solaris if I'm not mistaking.

I know, I know.... This time, it was KDE that were bashed by a gnome fan....

Usually, it is the KDE folks that are complaining about Gnome (at least in my mind). Although, both desktop environments are really good, I find gnome to be less bloated (i.e. faster) and better looking. I'm sure that most KDE trolls complaining about gnome have never tried Ximian Gnome, which is a very nice implementation of Gnome.

I guess, most users (particularly new users) are using KDE, which is default desktop environment for many (most?) distributions. KDE is fine, and if you are
happy with it, thats fine.

But people don't "use" desktop environments, the use applications. There's no way that linux will be a common desktop operating system, without good applications. And here the KDE community fails. I find none of the KDE applications particular useful, especially compared to GTK/Gnome counterparts.

I agree with the original posting:
Mozilla/Galeon beats Konqueror
ABiword/Gnumeric(and openoffice) beats Koffice, which lacks to many feature..
..
..
And the list goes on and on... Offcourse, with the libs installed, you can run "any" applications on both desktops, but many gnome/gtk apps work better on gnome.

Finally, even though KDE was initiated before gnome, and even though KDE has a higher version number (being 2.2 or 3.0 beta), this do not mean that they are superior or anything (I've heard this too many times).

"Usually, it is the KDE folks that are complaining about Gnome (at least in my mind)."

That's not the impression I get in places like linuxtoday.com and the like. Usually there are people flaming KDE and Trolltech and arguing about the license of Qt (still!). People often compare Trolltech to Microsoft saying things like "You must not give TT the power over Linux! Don't use KDE!"

While both camps have individuals who flame the "other" project, you must admit that KDE has been treated unfairly in the past (RMS's "You must beg for forgiveness" was just the tip of the iceberg).

Ironically, both projects co-exists peacefully, it's the users who fight.

Well, I tried both Gnome and KDE, and I liked KDE more. The moment Gnome gets better than KDE (from my perspective. I'm sure there are people out there who find Gnome better for reasons of their own) I will switch. But I just don't see that happening anytime soon, if ever.

The only way that Gnome could some day get better than KDE is to write it all again from scratch. It's the only way MacOS got unbloated... seems to me that Gnome 2 is a patch for 1.4 which was a patch for 1.2. That's why Gnome gets slower and slower as its version number increases.

Not to say Nautilus. A good app to suck resources and not getting the job done. Try to cut/copy and paste a directory... The only good feature I could recall from Nautilus is the "News" tab.

I personally was a Gnome fan myself, since I got to Linux, back in 1999.
From 3 months now, I only use KDE and love it.

Gnome will be default desktop environment for RedHat for Solaris, someday - will be interesting how soon after Gnome 2.0.
In which points is Galeon better in using Gecko than Konqueror when using Gecko? Only compare similar programs, like GUIs for rendering engines.
And OpenOffice beats the so-called "Gnome Office" patch work.
Many applications you mention were born earlier than Gnome or KDE, so no suprise they are more sophisticated.

This is a true point. I personnally find KDE the better Desktop (love that alt-F2 thing! - why isn't there a Gnome equivalent?) and konqueror the best file-manager and general viewer, but all my favorite applications (Evolution, Scigraphica, Galeon, OpenOffice) are Gnome/GTK.

If KWord was so bad, I don't know how I manage to use
this old copy of KWord 0.8 (KDE 2.0.0pre). All I need to do
is type some text, put a bit of bold, italic, centering, or
indenting in, define a few styles, save and print.

Gnome started for one reason and one reason only: RMS didn't agree with the KDE developers' interpretation of the GPL wrt the QT library. Gnome was set up with the intention of creating FUD to delay the uptake of the best thing to ever happen to desktop Linux and to bluff and bully the KDE crowd into getting the QT licencing changed.

Yes, you heard it right, Gnome was *deliberately* started to be "bickering, competing and incompatible" and to stop Linux having a single desktop standard if that standard was to be KDE.

The licence issue is *long* in the past. That out of the way, the Gnome crowd should have had to decency to either scrap Gnome completely (as did those working on the Harmony project, which was developing a GPL QT clone) so we could unite behind KDE or keep Gnome going as a low key longer-term hacker R&D project like Enlightenment. But no, we had to keep the ball rolling didn't we.

Why, given the adverse impact this has had on Linux and other target platforms?

NIH syndrome partly; a lot of big egos (many in the US) were beaten to the punch by a bunch of (mainly) German students.

And the fact that it relies on an existing library means that big egos who want to reinvent the universe can't develop their own object library; they have to do something useful.

But the main reason, irony of ironies, is that it is LGPL rather than KDE's GPL; yes folks, the desktop that began as *THE* GNU free desktop now boasts that it is more commercial-friendly. That's why Sun and HP are putting money into it. Guarantees success? Ah, look at CDE...

Gnome is an expensive, deliberately divisive vapourware project that should have been scrapped after the QT licence changes if the principals involved had any sense of decency or any *REAL* committment to free software. It continues because a bunch of pricks can't admit that they were wrong and continue to put their own giant egos ahead of the development of desktop Unix.

Meanwhile KDE continues to release in its usual methodical fashion while Gnome 2 stays as FUD. ("You may think KDE's kewl, but wait till you see Gnome 2!") Pardon me while I puke...

Gnome and the bastards who've hyped this piece of vapourware and tried to sabotage KDE for the last five years can go to Hell! Who needs Microsoft trying to pull the rug from under the free Unix's when you've got this lot! (Yes, that includes RMS, who is responsible for initiating and encouraging this debacle).

To paraphrase the end of RMS's infamous letter of "forgiveness" to the KDE developers: Go KDE!!!

Yep, I wonder where GNOME had been without all the venture captial which was available between 1998-2000. Where had Mozilla been? Where had Ximian been? Where had Eazel (!) been? Where had gtkhtml2 been?

Actually I have a feeling venture capital would mess KDE up. It is good that KDE is not attached to one corporation, like Gnome is, where most of their developers are paid by Ximian and will eventually be out of jobs as Ximian has no business plan that is viable.

You're so right... However, if Gnome should disappear we would miss a lot of (computer) humor. Imagine you're running a deb potato, and try (for fun, before dist-upgrading to woody...) to add the ximian source. Now let's do a little: dpkg -l "libgal*".

So what do we have now: a library that does something its name does not clearly states, so it's just ANOTHER GNOME LIBRARY. It's not an old one, since it was not present at the early days (I was there at that time). How come the API change everyday so that it's already at it's 19th ver !!!! kdelibs3 should be so deprecated :)

But what's cool, is that the API changes so fast (Gnome developpers don't think, again I know some of them by mail, they just "CODE AND SEE"), that each app relies on a separate ver of such an API. So a fresh install brings you all the shit AT ONCE.

I'll stop here, but just say that if some candid people think libgnome32 means it's 32bits, there's also libgnome31 :)

PS (to the original troll author): Red-Carpet is definitely a winner on debian systems. If Gnome (valuable, those who know C++) developpers would have contributed to KDE _apps_ the open source community would be even happier.

That is the best Summary that I've read on the subject good job. Its funny how the obvious has escaped so many. The "choice" arguement is the one that I enjoy. As if they want people to have a "choice". If it was up to RMS there would be no choice just GNU.

I agree with the above post that it's best not to feed the trolls. I am a GNOME fan myself, but I respect KDE. GNOME gets its fair share of trolls too, and encouraging the trolls doesn't seem to work ;-). Good luck to KDE and ignore joe99 (or whomever). He doesn't represent true GNOMErs.

I agree, but just flipped around :) Im a KDE user, but respect GNOME.
I used to use GNOME all the time. But When I first decided to use KDE,
KDE was much prettier than GNOME. Although that is changing I still prefer KDE.
But really only cause Im used to it.

I don't really understand this silly war between different groups anyway.... i mean i don't care if someone says Gnome is better or KDE is better.. bla bla bla.... i use KDE because I like it. I like the way you look, I like the way you move - KDE..... so is this just a childs desperate call for attention?? as we all can see from the replies it's a succéss! USE whatever you like but don't bother with these silly wars will ya! Look at all the energy lost for this crap.... it could have gone into coding, translating etc.....Just my thoughts!

:: I don't really understand this silly war between different groups anyway.

I don't like it, nor do I think it is anything by juvenile, but I do understand it. It's the same impulse that causes people to root for their favorite sports team, or for the kind of car they bought. It can blind them to the problems with the thing they have affiliated with (and that applies to us KDE users just as much).

It's absurd, to a certain point - I love playing sports, but I've never been much of a sports fan, following teams that I'm not actually on. Never saw the point. But it is a popular pasttime, and this is the exact same thing.

i am mainly gnome user and migrated to gnome 2 some das ago. i must say that doing this was a hard task. i dont want to sound like a troll nor do i want to rant shit but here the problems that occoured:

- you need to install nearly all programming languages available on your system only to get gnome 2 compiled. often you ask yourself 'why?'. example gnome 2 has only 1 python file that is required to get a basic gnome 2 installation. i am no python programmer nor am i interested in python but you are forced to install python to get gnome 2 compiled because that one fucking file requires it. i mean ok gnome is a programming language independant project and i respect it. but if someone wants to code python gnome applications then its ok but i dont need to install it. so the basic target of compiling gnome 2 from CVS terribly sucks, bad planned stuff.

- gnome 2 got a shitload of new libraries and modules that you need to compile its mainly a complete BREAKUP of previous gnome 1 currently the CVS looks more than a warfield than really usable, not to mention all the problems, bugs etc. and if you look at their roadmap then gnome 2 should be done middle of march, this is exactly 30 days from today on (15 Feb. 2002). i doubt and seriously i really doubt that they get a working DESKTOP done until that time. at the end there is no TESTCASE possible.

- CVS module A requires autoconf 2.13, automake 1.3 to get the scripts set up correctly.
- CVS module B requires autoconf 2.50, automake 1.4 to get the scripts set up correctly.
- CVS module C requires autoconf 2.52, automake 1.5 to get the scripts set up correctly.

seriously well planned. not to mention that there is no single letter written in the README's or INSTALL files that at least detail the requirements correctly. no you need to play trivia with the configure.in files. not to mention that the buildscripts are so broken at the moment that a lot of autogenerated files must be made manually e.g. make gnome-mokka.h only to get the file.

now result:

if i compare the above stuff with the current CVS of KDE3 and QT3 then i must say 'well it takes some hours to compile but at least it compiles' even the testphase for kde 3 seem to be longer for me than that for gnome 2. i think that after KDE 3 comes finally out its probably the better decission for people who wants a desktop.

issue commercial companies:

attentive readers of gnome mailinglist will find out that a lot of SUN people behave like they were owners of GNOME. e.g. you get strange looking emails from them with directives and orders. example: 'we want this and we want that' sure if they pay fine for gnome then why not. same for ximian and their sick roadmap with .NET i mean a lot of gnome developers got so pissed that they wanted to cut off the head of miguel de icaza because of the shit shouting out on reports and other crap.

issue evolution:

evolution is a nice pim for gnome, probably the best on the market right now but it has a lot of issues. the new current CVS uses .NET technology already because they added some more dependencies to it like SOUP.

gnome development community itself:

i havent see so many people on one place that carry their nose that high in the air i wonder how they still see their own road when they walk. hope none of them hit a wall by mistake. mainly patches welcome but stay out of our community. no ? you dont want to stay out ? you are a troll +b !*ruediger*@* (this is a fake ident) but as i always said pride comes before the fall.

gtk 2 matures gnome, the gimp matures gnome:

no not today but i see it comming, all these people hung out on the same channel and influences them. a lot of people dont like desktops and really get pissed by the idea that they cant use simple gtk applications anymore because of the big dependency. well oki yes.. yes... yes you can say, hum install packs i dont care but thats not the point a lot of these people are EXPERTS (well no one is really stupid if he/she decides for linux, so its no need to make people more stupid in the public as they in reality are) besides its a known and most used phrase of the gnome developers "why do you want to compile, a normal user should use RPM's or DEB's".. excuse me isnt it open source ? like SOURCECODE ? like 'i want to tweak' ? so why the fuck does some of the 'usability sun or redhat suckers' come up with that shit ? either help or shut the fuck up.

oki now some sentences to kde:

well i always eye on kde and to say the truth, 'yes kde is more usable' it is better thought, better planned and kde 3 offers programs already that you can use for daily work. look at gnome after the gnome 2 release comes out, then where are the apps ? they still needs to get ported (if not dead already) i mean i have a nice sweat desktop and a shit on it. using nautilus to watch pron pictures all the day is not what i call serious work. kde 3 comes with so many applications, more than my heart can carry. but on the otherhand kde has some sideeffects that makes me avoid using it. e.g. no 'the gimp' i dont like the idea (i am selfspeaking here) to mix widgetsets, thats what i have done 7-8 years back on linux and it made me sick. i want a unified desktop (thats the reason for a desktop) and i want unified applications. now kde offers a lot of applications. but the reason why people more and more decide to use gnome instead of kde is simple because of the gimp and because of the possiblility to hack in 'C'. at least they are my reasons. but neverthless KDE 3 will make it. now why comes that a gnome user says this. its simple because of all the applications.

now i tested gnome 2 what do i get. nothing. the same applications, same gnome utils, some ui refered changes but basically a gnome 1 desktop (nothing new) oki from the coding point of view a lot of shit changed (no doubt) but apps. where are the apps. its the same like buying a xbox with 1 game it makes no fun so i better go for the old well known playstation 2 with 200 games. its simple. not only that kde 3 has a longer roadmap, no there are already so many applications available for it because a lot of people had the time porting it.

you guys on KDE dont need to worry, gnome may become good but it never touches KDE you guys dont only offer KDE on the release day, you also know that people get the applications for it. unfortunately its not the case for GNOME.

there has been no kde myth at any time. (at least none
i know of...) Well, there has been no gnome myth either.
These Gnome/Gtk apps are all not bad... and nobody said,
they are bad. They are all o.k.
Me thinks, kde just looks nicer, feels better, ...so what ?

I love it when softare products compair their latest beta to 6 month old software.

Truth be known, our latest Betas kick Gnome 2s arse... Gnome 2 is 2 year old ideas rewritten. Although I give the Gnomes credit that Gnome 2 is very similar to KDE 2.0. So maby in 4 more years we will see some of the features in KDE 3.

Is there a reason why Sun did not demo Gnome on any of there systems at LWE? Well official response from SUN was it was too embaresingly slow on a Ultra... and it crashed alot. They did say they had it running on a PC though for demo of OpenOffice. Wasnt Gnome suppose to be their default desktop?

As for dists supporting KDE over Gnome, did you ever wonder why? Its not like the KDE PR machine is strong arming them. There is no company to sell the desktop all pretty and pollished. Could it be maby KDE was technicly better? Could it be that secretly we have been sneaking RPMs into their dists?

No the truth is Gnome died before it got started and as soon as RedHad abandons them, the project will drift off into the land of the Berlin project. I will not even get into the issue that the KDE project is PURE community. There are no companies that manage it, there are no people to guide it. Unlike Gnome, we dont have a company saying "We will support " We just have developers who implement good ideas.